You’ve successfully conquered the Match and are on your way to your dream residency program! There are so many reasons to celebrate at this point with so much of your medical education behind you. But the next chapter is about to unfold with your first year of residency. Your residency intern year will be filled with a lot of new experiences, tasks, and information. This is definitely an exciting time to look forward to, but it will also be challenging and may even be a cause for nervousness.

Clinical rotations are supposed to help you prepare for your intern year by familiarizing you with clinical settings. However, broadening your clinical experience can be helpful, especially if you already know what specialty you are interested in pursuing. This was AMO visitor Fanru’s path. After recently matching into general surgery, Fanru shared her AMO story with us.

 

Preparing for Surgery

Knowing she wanted to do her residency in the U.S., Fanru knew she would need U.S. clinical experience to show directors her familiarity with the U.S. healthcare system. This is what eventually led Fanru to AMO. With the pandemic, Fanru was having trouble finding in-person clinical rotations. Through AMO, however, Fanru was able to still rotate not just once, not twice, but three times with virtual rotations.

During her story, Fanru talks about the advantages of virtual rotations and how they helped prepare her for her residency intern year. Knowing she would have to learn about various medical divisions, Fanru expected her residency intern year to confuse her “both medically and casually.” However, she mentions the additional time that virtual rotations provide with the preceptor gave her the space to ask questions about the field and the learning materials. Of these learning materials, Fanru says that they helped her learn more about the field and made her better prepared not just for her residency intern year but also to take care of patients.

Hear Fanru’s full story below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi_QwhPBi6c